Frayed
by Jessa4865
Summary: Elliot finally discovers the truth.
1. Chapter 1

Frayed

Jezyk

Disclaimer: Tag, you're it.

Spoilers: None that I can think of.

Part One

The car is quiet as they wait. Elliot is sitting the in driver's seat, his left arm resting idly on the edge of the door against the closed window. Eli is playing in his car seat in the back, atypically quiet for the usually rambunctious little boy. Elliot doesn't complain, taking his eyes off the building in front of them long enough to smile at the boy in the rear view mirror. Eli pauses in his game with his plastic blue dinosaur to blow a kiss to his father.

Elliot's smile fades and he turns away.

Fuck, it's not the boy's fault.

Not that fault actually changes anything.

Elliot's eyes fix straight ahead, his mind purposely blank, thinking of nothing as he watches a robin hop around, pecking at a twig until it finally decides to take it and flies away. Elliot envies that robin, wishing he could fly away. He could, he knows, but he won't. He envies Olivia in that way too, knowing that in his position, his partner would have long since cut her ties and disappeared to somewhere less painful.

But Elliot isn't his partner. No, he's a glutton for punishment, determined to wheedle out of his rightful place in hell by torturing himself incessantly through his corporeal existence. That way, when he has to defend his actions over the years to Saint Peter, he can also explain that he's already paid well in advance for any sins he's committed.

He wonders if that's a sin.

Finally, after a period of interminable waiting that lasts maybe ten minutes, he sees what he's been waiting for – his wife. Kathy emerges from the building in a crowd of thirty other people, the contents of several elevators' worth of workers leaving the office at five. Her long blonde hair is twisted up in some sort of fancy knot instead of the tangled way he's used to seeing it on the pillow at night. Gone too are the frumpy pajamas, replaced with a pinstriped skirt and blazer. Her blouse is a frilly ivory thing with a long sash around the neck tied into a bow. There are a couple other women in the group wearing something similar, but it still reminds Elliot of something his mother would wear.

She doesn't see him, he realizes, as her steps slow. She waves and bids goodbye to a few people as the crowd disperses, but there is one person who stays by her side. He is tall, dressed nicely, his dirty blond hair slicked back from his face, his wide smile aimed solely at Kathy.

There is something familiar about the man and Elliot searches his memory for the rare occasion when he has seen her coworkers and the even rarer occasions when she has introduced him to them. With his career as a cop, Elliot has spent his adult life recognizing faces and while he is sure he knows this one, he cannot for the life of him identify it.

He debates asking Kathy. They rarely speak anymore, never anything more than direct, polite statements, mostly regarding the children. He doesn't mind; it's one less constant source of stress in his life. And he already has enough of those.

He watches with greater interest when he sees Kathy scanning the parking lot. She still doesn't see his car, parked halfway behind a large SUV.

It is because she doesn't know he's there, he's certain, that she turns back to her companion with a smile. The man stoops, opening his arms to Elliot's wife, wrapping her in a tight, long embrace. The physical connection, the length of time, the placement of the man's hands on Kathy's lower back, the way his hands move to her hips as they separate – it sets off warning bells in Elliot's head. Suddenly he realizes the bright smile and blush on Kathy's face have nothing to do with the end of the workday or the bright sun. The man's hands are slow to release her, possessively sliding from her frame as though he might decide to pull her back at any moment. Her eyes are riveted to his face, soaking up whatever he is telling her.

"Daddy, can we go to Middies?" Eli's innocent question startles Elliot. He wants to be amused at the boy's version of "Mickey D's," but he's not.

He glances in the mirror to assure the boy they will get dinner somewhere, his heart dropping when his eyes connect with the pudgy face behind him. He twists then, looking at the child over his shoulder as if the mirror might have played a dirty trick on him.

But no, the mirror was completely honest.

Elliot feels sick.

He's known for a long time, suspected even longer, but somehow the depersonalized results of a paternity test on a piece of paper he received in the mail feel very different from seeing the boy's father in person. Knowing and seeing are not the same.

He thinks about leaving again, leaving her there, leaving the kids behind, leaving his job, just leaving.

He can't think of leaving his partner though, and the thought that his disappearance might hurt her is what stops him from walking away. Well, that and his layaway plan for his soul. If there is one thing in his life he knows how to succeed at, it is continually making his life a bit more painful than it already is.

He blares the horn instead, letting the obnoxious sound pull Kathy from her nauseating flirting with her lover. He took off work early to get her, left Olivia with a mound of paperwork two weeks high to give his lying, cheating wife a ride. He wishes he'd just loaned her the car so he could have stayed in the precinct, working so late with the woman he wishes he had the balls to have an affair with that he would almost forget he'd been cuckolded.

Kathy jerks around, her eyes finally spotting the car, and Elliot knows she's wondering how much he saw, how much he knows. She has no idea he'd already known. She hurries toward the car, faking a smile at him, blowing a kiss at her youngest child.

"Sorry, I didn't see you." She glances back at Eli like she questions Elliot's ability to care for the fifth child he's helped raise. "Everything ok?"

He doesn't answer.

He does his homework. He finds the guy's name, his address, his racquetball club. It's not that he wants to know. It's not that he plans to grill his wife. He just needs to have the information, to think, to plan.

Eventually, on a Wednesday afternoon several weeks later, he drags his unwitting partner with him, parking their sedan across the parking lot from Brian Lautenberg's car. Olivia has given up asking where they're going and what he needs to ask her. She has fallen silent in the passenger seat, resigned to either trusting him or wishing he would hurry the hell up. He never has been any good at determining if she's humoring him or if she really wants to help.

Right on schedule at quarter after six, Brian slowly makes his way from the door of the club with his racquet in one hand and his cell phone in the other. Elliot wonders if he's talking to Kathy. The only thing he can think is that he's glad she's not bitching on his phone.

Rather than explaining himself, Elliot nods toward the man and waits for Olivia to look. Her face reveals nothing.

"Tell me if I'm crazy." It is obvious that Eli looks exactly like the man. Or it's not. A framed photo of the boy that's not his has always been on his desk and Olivia has certainly seen a few million times.

She looks at him as though she thinks he might well be crazy, but she says nothing.

"Does he look familiar to you?" He prods, wanting her to find the resemblance so uncanny that she doesn't need him to say it.

She narrows her eyes, scrutinizing the man more closely as he climbs into his car. "I guess a little." She shrugs noncommittally, telling Elliot she doesn't recognize him at all. She turns back to her partner. "Should I know him?"

Elliot nods toward the man again. "Just think about it. Maybe I'm wrong."

Brian has shifted sideways behind the steering wheel and has his briefcase open on the passenger seat of his convertible. No wonder Kathy likes him. She's always been interested in flashy things. After all, it had the Camaro he'd painstakingly rebuilt at sixteen that won her attention in the first place.

Eventually Olivia gives up studying the man and looks back at Elliot with a shake of her head. "No, I don't think I know him."

Elliot pulls the photograph from his pocket, the one that has been on his desk for a year since the last time Kathy had taken the boy to sit for a portrait. He slides it across the seat, realizing there's a lump in his throat. He hadn't wanted to cry when he had proof of his suspicions regarding the brown-eyed boy. He hadn't wanted to cry the first time he'd laid eyes on Lautenberg. But revealing it to Olivia, showing her that he needs her opinion, somehow hurts worse, cuts deeper. Maybe because telling his partner makes it real, far more real than an idea in his head that had never been breathed aloud.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the way her jaw drops open, hears the way her breath catches. He glances at her, wanting to see the familiar roll of her eyes as she accuses him of being a nutjob, as though Olivia's opinion alone has the power to change reality.

Rather than the reassurance he seeks, he sees only surprise, confusion, doubt. She can't believe he's letting her in on a secret, doesn't understand why he's confiding something regarding his family in her, isn't used to him sharing those thing with her.

He realizes then that that was precisely his mistake all along. He had trusted Kathy for thirty years and she'd betrayed him. Now while he had, and always would, trust Olivia with his life and his career, he'd never deigned her worthy of his personal life, of his secrets, of his heart.

God he'd been an ass.

And still, she was there beside him, waiting so many years for him to take off the blinders.

He decides then and there that the most loyal, trustworthy friend he's ever had is worth revealing his insecurities. She deserves the trust he's never given her.

He swallows the lump, his eyes flicking to the picture in his hand. "I can't trust myself right now, Liv." He turns his attention back to her, watching her eyes moving away from his. "I've always suspected Eli wasn't mine and now I've seen this guy and I need you to tell me what you think."

Olivia's eyes move with Lautenberg's car as he pulls away. "El," she starts, but they both know she won't finish.

His voice comes out as a whisper as he begs. "I trust you."

She hears his unspoken plea, his promise that she's the only one he'd ask, his desperation that she put his fears to rest. She won't look at him. "You need to talk to Kathy about this, not me."

It's far more definitive than that paternity test had been; Olivia's refusal to quell his fear meaning so much more to him than the 99.9% odds that someone else had fathered Eli Stabler.

He feels the lump returning, moisture gathering in his eyes, not at the truth he'd already known, but at his partner's pathetic attempt to protect him. Releasing the photo, his hand moves to cover hers. "I know Eli isn't mine."

God, he feels like an idiot. How stupid did he have to be to not realize there was a reason why his wife hadn't wanted to have sex more than a handful of times in the years since they'd gotten back together? He'd just thought she was as bored with the relationship as he was, that she too would rather go without sex than fake feelings that weren't there anymore.

Her hand squeezes his gently and then moves away. "Did Kathy tell you that?" Her voice is hard, annoyed. She's putting space between them; she's probably as uncomfortable with the idea of him crying as he is.

"I just wanted an unbiased opinion." He can hear the guilt in his voice and he wonders if she does too.

"How do you know, Elliot?" She's pressing him, hoping he'll say it's an instinct, a gut feeling, something she can dispute, anything she can use to get them back on the solid, familiar ground where he doesn't confide in her and she doesn't have to comfort him.

"Eli looks just like him, doesn't he?" He won't let her back away; he's come too far, admitted too much. He needs her now, more than he ever has, and he's not going to be able to pretend he's ok if she keeps pushing him away.

She sighs. "Yes, there is a resemblance there, but that doesn't mean anything. They have the same color hair. That doesn't mean that man is your son's father." She's trying to comfort him and shove him away at the same time.

He stuffs the picture back in his coat pocket, needing to not feel the kid's eyes on him. "I had a paternity test done a few months ago. I knew he wasn't mine. I had no idea she was still with him." He can feel her eyes on him again, but he can't look at her. One look in the eyes he knows will now be soft and accepting and gentle and he'll be bawling inconsolably in her lap. "I saw him hug her – and I just-" he stops, trying to hold himself together, if not to spare himself, then to spare her the pain of seeing him break. He shakes his head and tries to convince himself that losing a woman he doesn't love doesn't hurt. "Let me put it this way – I've known you for fifteen years and I've never touched you like that."

She is silent, admitting that she knows there is nothing she can say to make him feel any better.

"He's a god damned contract attorney. I mean, what the hell did she need me back for if she was with a guy who could provide for her better than I could?" He is still angry at that, at Kathy demanding he come back to her when he'd tried so hard not to leave her in the first place. He is still angry that Kathy's ill-timed re-staking of her claim on him ruined any chance he might have had with exploring something more with his partner.

It would have been doomed at the time though. Olivia hadn't been ready. And he had still been berating himself for failing at being a husband.

But they are older now, more settled.

He knows Olivia seems more like his wife than Kathy ever did.

Not that he'll ever be able to tell her that.

They have an understanding, a silent one, that they will never walk away, never turn their backs, never leave each other, so long as neither one of them dares mention it ever again.

Every day it's harder for him to keep up his end of the bargain, especially with the new light that's shining on his marriage. His plan to torture himself to death doesn't make so much sense anymore, not when he allows himself to consider that he might be hurting Olivia too.

She never does answer him, perhaps knowing anything she says will be wrong. She expects he'll be looking to dump his anger and pain on someone and that she'll be the closest target. As always.

He hears his voice speaking, leaking out words he'd intended to keep to himself. "I was hoping he'd be a loser or something. Anything to make it ok that she lied."

"Nothing would make that ok," she whispers, her soft words reminding him of all those times he'd chosen the wrong woman.

She's right. He wishes he could find the strength to tell her that she always has been. In so very many ways.


	2. Chapter 2

Part Two

Sixteen days. It has taken him sixteen days to get his shit together.

Not that standing outside his partner's building at three in the morning with nowhere to live and no one else to turn to necessarily appears to define having his shit together.

Some dumbass has left the lobby door propped open on an old phone book and so Elliot pushes through the security door. It's easier than buzzing her and waiting for her to shout curses through the crappy speaker. As he waits for the elevator to climb to her floor, he decides knocking on her door will somehow have a better effect on her.

It does, apparently, because while she's thoroughly confused at his presence, she lets him in without cursing at him for waking her.

She's half asleep, her eyes still squinting against the brightness of her living room lamp. "What's up?"

She knows it's not work. He would have called for that. He would have met her at the scene or even at the precinct.

He feels stupid and toes the drab beige carpeting just inside the door. He shouldn't have come to her.

But there's nowhere else for him to go.

He figures she knows that or she wouldn't have let him in.

He shrugs, glancing at her and then looking away. Keeping it to himself isn't going to make it go away. "I talked to Kathy."

Olivia's eyes widen almost imperceptively. She immediately hides her reaction by ducking down, her shoulders following suit. She is tired; he doesn't need to see the bags under her eyes to know it.

He feels worse for being there, for needing her, when she needs rest. He wants to turn around and leave, but somehow, running away now would be far more embarrassing than admitting he needs her in the first place.

She steps forward, reaching out, taking his hands in hers.

He thinks for a moment that she has finally understood, has finally seen what he's too scared to say. For a moment, he is elated that she feels the same.

But rather than holding his hands or squeezing them or pulling him into a hug, she lets go, her face somewhat amused when she looks up at him.

"This is going to sound like an insult, El, but it's not, I swear." She nods toward his hands with a smile. "I'm really surprised I'm not dragging you to Mercy with a broken hand." She shakes her head. "Hell, you're not even bleeding."

He stares at her, feeling like she's just popped his psyche like a balloon. He chokes, barely able to force out a whisper. "You think I'd hit her?"

He can't even breathe. The thought is strangling him. He hates that she would think that. He hates that she doesn't know him well enough to know he'd die before he hit a woman.

She laughs.

Laughs.

He wants to cry.

"No, El, of course not, but I figured you'd have stuck your hand through some drywall at the very least." She's chuckling at him. "I'm proud of you." She's laughing, but she's serious at the same time.

And suddenly he's laughing too.

As the laughter fades into silence, he feels a smile remaining on his face. He glances at her and shrugs, realizing that he's a little surprised too. "Well, I guess I had to grow up sometime."

She rolls her eyes. "You weren't so grown up last week when I questioned Martinez without waiting for you."

He feels the blush burning in his cheeks before he even realizes why. He looks away, cursing his Irish heritage for making his embarrassment so transparent. "That was different."

She shakes her head, leaning back on the edge of the sofa. "You're going senile on me. How is that different? I thought you were going to break the mirror in the interrogation room."

She's only half teasing, he knows, because he'd seen the way she jumped when he'd started yelling. He's seen her face down his fury too many times not to throw her a bone now.

He offers her a half smile and then drops it on her. "It's different because you have to care to get that upset."

She stares at him for a moment as though she might accept what he's telling her without argument, then shoves it away like he expects. "You care about Kathy, El."

And he does. But not enough. Not enough to get so damn upset. It hurts – losing his marriage, losing his wife, losing his, well not his, child. Still, it only hurts him, just him, not anyone else. And it's the desire to protect someone he loves from getting hurt that causes him to get so damn angry.

He steps forward, realizing that he's still standing stupidly in the doorway. He needs to explain himself. He needs to spell it out in such a way that she can't brush it off.

Maybe it's a mistake.

Maybe it'll backfire.

Maybe it's the most honest thing he's ever done in his entire life.

Just thinking about it as he crosses the few feet between them, he can feels his body responding.

She has no idea. She doesn't expect it. She doesn't see it coming.

She's standing there with her arms folded across her chest when his hands land on her cheeks.

Her mouth barely has time to drop open in shock before his lips are on hers, pressing lightly, gently, restraining the enormous swell of passion he's feeling at the idea that he's finally doing something he's wanted to do for so damn long, denying the urge to press his body into hers.

He is careful to stay mostly out of contact. It's just the barest brush of lips, a hint of a touch of tongues. He doesn't dare get closer, not even when her arms unfold enough for her hands to grip his shirt. He wants her, desperately, but he's terrified of letting her see that, of letting her feel how hard he is from such minimal contact.

He backs up, knowing he'll lose control if he tempts it, knowing it'll just be harder to hear her rejection the more obvious his feelings are.

Her silence is unbearable.

His nerves are choking him.

He wonders if it's possible for his heart to explode from anxiety.

Her voice is soft, nearly as soft as her lips. "That was-"

And then he realizes that he can't take it, can't possibly hear her turn him down. He's just going to have to die right there on her floor. It's all her fault. She should have known how hard he was falling for her, how he'd always been falling for her.

"What? That was what?" His voice is harsh. He is thinking that maybe if he pretends he never let his guard down, then she'll forget.

But her face is smiling when she shifts into his line of sight, her eyes showing no hint of reproach. "Nice." Her hand lands on his shoulder, lightly sliding down over his chest and stopping at his waist. "That was nice."

She is nervous too; he can hear it in her voice.

"Nice?" He's offended, but not hurt. He hopes her nerves made her choose the wrong word.

She looks away. Her hand drops, her arm falling to her side. She sounds sad, almost defeated. "Maybe we can try it again sometime."

She doesn't know why he pulled away. She doesn't know why he didn't pull her close or kiss her fully or feel her up. She thinks she's the one being rejected, like her response to his kiss wasn't enough to entice him.

And then he is smiling, grinning, moving directly in front of her, his hands grabbing her waist and pulling her so close that she can't possibly misinterpret his attraction to her.

"I can do better than nice." He kisses her for real then.

It is morning when he finally finds the courage to explain everything to her. He's drawn strength from her all night, holding her close and knowing, despite the layers of clothing still between them, that things have changed permanently. He's ok with it though, because she is there with him, snuggled into his side, listening to him relate the details of his marriage-ending discussion with Kathy.

Olivia doesn't say a word when he tells her of Kathy's lame excuse for lying to him, but he knows she hurts for him. Olivia's eyes are wet when he speaks of Kathy's heartless acknowledgement that she knew all along Eli was not Elliot's son. Olivia's arm squeezes around his middle when he reports that he mentioned a divorce and Kathy agreed without a moment's hesitation.

But unlike the last time his marriage fell apart, Elliot doesn't feel like he's spiraling out of control into some bottomless pit of despair and fear and helplessness.

He feels like he might actually be moving in the right direction for the first time in his life, even though it would appear to anyone else that his life was unraveling. His edges are frayed, but the center is holding.

Olivia's eyes are drifting closed, exhaustion taking over her. Elliot looks at her with a smile. If not for her, he'd have buried his grief and pain and anger in a bottle and be nursing a hangover. Instead, he's deliciously tired and ridiculously comfortable with his arms cradling the right woman.

Finally.


End file.
